The adventures of Tim the Necromancer: Dark Alchemy 2

After getting a positive lateral flow test this morning, I found myself at home rather than work, so while my son napped I ventured back into the frozen city for the second scenario of Dark Alchemy: Skeletal Run.

I set up the board as usual:

I had initially intended to model and paint some teleportation pads to play this scenario, but went with coloured beads in order to be able to play straight away.

I think I’m going to need to make some multi storey terrain and walkways in the future, but for the scenarios set underground like this mini campaign is what I have currently works perfectly.

Before starting, I ummed and ahhhed over whether I should be able to pick a base after the first scenario. Rules as written it’s a yes, even though it doesn’t necessarily tally narratively with being trapped underground - if you can’t cast out of game spells as you’re so pressed for time, how are you supposed to be able to nip back to your base? I chose a treasury as my base, and think of it as them finding hidden caches in this underground lab, that once they escape they’ll clear out and use as their secret base moving forwards, continuing to explore it to find a scrap of something worth selling to generate a handful of gold, and the occasional treasure. Rolling for my first income from my base, I roll a 20!

This is a magic item, which turns out to be Gloves of Casting, which should come in very handy given my habit of rolling very poorly.

My intrepid band of heroes made their way boldly up the centre of the table (figuring that it would keep the furthest from any suddenly appearing skeletons)

For the first spell of the game, Tim attempts to cast Strength on my Thug, which would make him as capable in a fight as the Knight that is having to sit out the rest of the mini campaign after getting knocked out last game. He even used his brand new Gloves of Casting, to make getting the spell off almost a sure thing and free up future turns for raising zombies and impressive displays of necromantic pyrotechnics. And then I rolled a 1.

Ah well, better luck next time. Tim managed to enhance the Thug with Strength before getting leapt on by a burning skeleton, but he quickly bops it with his staff. Plan A for Tim is always raise zombie (because it’s fun and easy to make friends when you’re a Necromancer), when I realise that there are two skeletons close enough together to get blasted by a Grenade spell. Which fails to go off, inevitably. Then so remember that one action each turn has to be a move, you can’t fight then cast a spell, so I take it back, but the failure still stings. 

Tim then raises a zombie between himself and the encroaching skeleton:

Which bundles forwards to fight and is instantly cut down, leaving Tim looking a bit panicked. In hindsight, I should have just left the zombie stood between Tim and his foe to tie it up for at least a turn, but I think I got carried away after my zombie performed so well last game…

Speaking of things in hindsight, my Thug that I’d cast Strength on to make him as good in a fight as the Knight that was KO’d last game after throwing him into a combat that he should have easily won, when thrown into a combat that he should easily have won was immediately smacked down to one health:

And then taken out of action due to the skeleton being on fire:

It’s only of it happens one more time that it becomes a tradition right? 

Everyone else continued getting bundled by skeletons, with Crossbow managing to win a fight and push off their opponent long enough to make a dash for it (only to get caught by a new skeleton unluckily appearing on the pad nearest to her), and Tim continuing to stave in skills with his staff, which seems to be more effective than his magic so far.  

At this point I suddenly remember that I have the spell Control Undead, which could turn an enemy into a friend, and roll a 1 to cast it. The next attempt is more successful though, allowing me to send a skeleton to help the crossbow that has been bundled by two skeletons. On her lonesome she is able to take out a skeleton, but supported by a controlled skeleton and Tim, the controlled skeleton is destroyed, and the crossbow gets knocked out too.

Several fights later, after it looks like I might have to cut and run in order for Tim to escape with his life, I manage to whittle down the remaining skeletons to the point where I’m able to control one to haul a treasure off the board, and then Tim is able to raise a zombie to use as bait for the remaining skeletons while he and the Tracker sweep up the remaining treasure tokens and then leg it off the board…

In the after game sequence, I realise that I did it wrong after the previous game - if I’d done it in the correct order, I wouldn’t have been able to learn Strength until after this game, so I removed things to correct this (not that Strength made any difference at all to this game, so I don’t feel like I gained a huge advantage). 

Rolling for injuries, between my Thug (free to replace) and my Crossbow (expensive specialist, model painted specially for this) which one do you think survived and which one died? That’s right, looks like I need to raise some more funds for when we get out of this labyrinth and replace a specialist… I had plans to hire an Apothecary too, maybe I should have done that from the beginning! 

After that sad turn of events, it was on to my favourite part of the post game sequence, rolling for treasure. This time I found another handful of gold, as well as a couple of pricy potions that I’m likely to hold onto far longer than I should, and a Grimoire of Control Construct, as apparently I rolled the exact same random spell as I did for the scroll I found after the first game. All else failing, I can probably sell off some stuff to fund getting a Captain, Apothecary, and replacing my Crossbow - maybe with that nice Barbarian sculpt I have primed, but on the other hand my experience so far seems to be that getting up close and personal with my enemies isn’t working out too well for me…

Plans for the future did initially look like playing the next scenario tomorrow, but then both my children tested positive too…

The adventures of Tim the Necromancer: Dark Alchemy 1

So, after what feels like an age of prep, I finally had everything I needed to start playing Frostgrave! 

I’m starting with Dark Alchemy, the short solo campaign from the Frostgrave Folio, and set up a little board accordingly:

And thus began the adventures of Tim the Necromancer (named partly for the Monty Python character, but equally for another blogger). Not particularly strongly, to be fair, repeatedly failing to cast any spells at first, but my warband were handily plugging away with arrows and bolts to start whittling down the Alchemical Monstrosity’s health. Until it shambled towards them, at which point they decided discretion was the better part of valour and MGS style his praying that it would go away:

Tim finally managed to conjure up a zombie minion at this point, which was duly flung towards the horrible beast to lure it away from the squishy henchmen. This zombie was actually very briefly MVP, managing to win the first combat against the beast, and then hold it off for no loss of health in the next turn. 

Unfortunately, it went rapidly downhill for my zombie from there, as he was reduced to his component parts with little ceremony.

The rest of the warband continued to plunk away at the monster from a distance, reducing it to one health.

While all this was going on, Tim had made his way to one of the doors that was potentially the exit. With only a 30% chance of the first door you check being the correct one and my historically disastrous ability to roll dice, I’d sent the rest of the warband towards the second door, expecting to roll low, and then happily Leap Tim across the board to rejoin his companions and exit to safety. Obviously the one time I thought I’d roll low I did the exact opposite, meaning the rest of the gang had to bundle their way across the width of the board, past an angry monster…

Which is where I made my biggest mistake.

Figuring that as my knight and the monster had pretty much the same stats, with the exception of my knight having 12 health to the monster’s 1, I charged him into the beast to finish it off:

(You can just see Tim bravely hiding behind a wall in the top right of this picture)

Obviously, this was the time that the creature rolled a 20 in combat, knocking my knight down to a single remaining health. And at this point I realised that my knight was carrying two treasure tokens…

Not to worry, I thought, I’ll Leap my knight to safety and shoot the monster to death. On uttering these words, I rolled low enough on initiative for the first time all game to have a rat appear, but more importantly for the Alchemical Monstrosity to act before my wizard, at which point he duly smashed my knight into the ground.

The next three turns saw theee more rats spawning, but my wizard and crossbowman between them blasted them off the board as they appeared, and my Tracker snuck behind the monster to finish it off with an arrow to the face. Everyone then bundled through the exit door, dragging the knight behind them, and it was time to count XP and treasure!

My bad luck rolling initiative the last few turns did actually have a silver lining, as I was pretty much farming the rats for XP turn after turn, and my treasure tokens left me with 60 gold, a Control Construct scroll (handy if I play the Golem mini campaign), a potion of strength and a Construct Oil, plus a Grimoire with the spell Strength that I immediately learned and lowered the casting cost of. It would be handy to cast on a Knight to make a +6 fight wrecking ball, but unfortunately he has to sit out the rest of the mini campaign so I’ll be using it to try and make a Thug as tough as a Knight most likely. I’m still torn as to whether I should have spent a level to increase Tim’s Fight or Health rather than lowering the cost of Strength, but on the other hand without my Knight Strength could come in handy, and as I regularly fail to cast much easier spells, who knows…

This morning, I found something I’d missed while tidying up after the game last night:

Which does make my coffee seem a little more menacing. 

When planning the warband, I’d envisioned the crossbow spending every turn reloading then firing again, but in this scenario there was a lot more ‘getting the heck out of dodge’ than there was ‘raining down death from above’!

So what’s next? All I need to be able to play the next scenario is 5 teleportation tiles, which is very doable. But then again, I’ve also got these to be getting on with:

Doors

An adventuring party’s worst enemy, if Critical Role is to be believed…

So, as the last thing I need before starting solo Frostgrave was a pair of doors I painted up these four from Zealot miniatures:

Beautifully detailed, lightweight, economical; highly recommended!

I was originally going to just paint them all shades of brown, but thought a little splash of colour would be more interesting to look at, hence the red and green doors.

Next, as I’ve decided against building and painting the final Thug that is almost certainly going to be replaced before their miniature even hits the table, playing the game!

Or some more little bits of scatter. You always need more little bits of scatter…

Gather the troops!

I’ve finished two more members of my Frostgrave warband, a thug and a crossbow man:

The thug was made using the Frostgrave soldiers kit, whereas the crossbowman is a lovely metal mini from a Westfalia Kickstarter, proving that Frostgrave is the perfect opportunity to use those odd minis that you didn’t really have a plan for!

Lovely stuff! She got a blue cloak at my wife’s suggestion, rather than something that would be better suited for a sneaky sniper. 

Much the same logic for the Thug’s yellow hat, I figured it would look snazzy more than anything else.

Finishing these two miniatures brings the Tally to:

6 vs -5 = +11

and leaves the warband so far looking like this:

So what’s next?

I’m a little torn currently - I’m having second thoughts about the last Thug which would complete the warband, as the miniature I selected (another lovely mini from Westfalia) is far too nice to just be a generic meat shield that will probably die after only one game! So, I either need to find a new mini for that, or dig out a suitable previously painted miniature, or even just do without, as I’m planning on playing through Dark Alchemy where you get to use only a handful of your warband, so I probably won’t need that third Thug, and anyway I’m most likely going to replace them at the earliest opportunity as soon as the good pieces start rolling in…

One thing I am sure of though, I need to paint some doors…

A jaunt into Frostgrave

As part of the ongoing operation: play some Frostgrave, I knew I needed to make… well, some Frostgrave! These plans were expedited when down in the basement I picked up a Hirst arts ruin that a friend gave me a few years back and it broke in my hands, so I decided to rebase some parts separately to allow for more modularity.

So this:

Became this:

I did briefly consider basing the ruins so that the outside edge of the wall was flush against the base to allow me the option to maybe make some rubble that would sit right up against the wall, but in the end decided to base everything centrally so they’ll match the rest of my existing scenery.

I did carefully set the bases so that if need be they can still be aligned in their original arrangement:

Although I did play around and see how they looked wildly mixing and matching the various pieces.

To supplement these, I decided to make some quick and easy walls that I’d been thinking about for quite some time, using cork mats:

These were from IKEA, I believe - whilst foam might be the go-to material for most modellers, I’m a huge fan of cork (I blame Matakishi and their tea house) and thought I could make a serviceable set of ruins using these. So I set about cutting and tearing some rough wall shapes using a handy Frostgrave thug as a scale guide. I knew I wanted a door in one piece, so used a base to ensure I had a symmetrical curve:

The good thing about ruins is even the wonkiest offcut can make a passable bit of scenery!

Back to my wall with a doorway:

I wanted some additional detail on these pieces - one benefit of foam over cork is you can scribe in brick detail, so to make these look more like built walls rather than smooth sci-fi concrete I took a leaf out of dollhouse modellers books and added bricks using egg box carton, as i thought the texture would look suitable stony when painted. I cut long oblongs and rounded off the edges, and wrapped these around the inside of the doorway so that it would look like stacked blocks:

I then cut more bricks and haphazardly arranged them on all of my walls for some additional detail. And yes, I did shave some down thinner to give a bit of variety of depth to the walls.

Once that was done (which took the majority of the film The Eternals, I seem to recall) it was time for basing, so I turned to my old reliable mystery board that I saved from a slip years ago:

I’m going to be in real trouble when I finally run out of it! I thinks it’s particleboard, but honestly don’t know enough about wood to be confident in that claim…

I measured out each wall piece onto their cut strip, trimmed it down and bevelled away, first with my knife, then going over it with a big file to smooth it out and allow the pieces to hopefully sit more naturally on the table.

Then it was time to hot glue everything down!

Having trimmed some of the bases down to fit the lengths of wall, I found myself with some odd short lengths of base left. Rather than saving these for a rainy day or letting them go to waste, I made a few shorter pieces, including this fallen column made using a cork:

And this odd bit with the curved edge of the mat used because I thought it might look like some sort of ruined column and add a bit of visual interest:

(I forgot to take a picture of it until after if painted it, apparently)

Although the majority of the pieces I made were straight lengths of wall to try and throw down some blocking terrain rather than necessarily being concerned with modelling realistic ruined buildings, one of the pieces I made was a corner ruin, so I spent some time smoothing out the joint where the two walls met with some filler:

Then it was time for glue and sand on the bases:

And then undercoating. I decided to try a mix of mod podge and black paint, as cork really needs sealing with something before you paint it if you’re planning on drybrushing it (hard won experience - it’s very frustrating if you knock off a little chunk to reveal the orange cork underneath!) and I’d seen this method recommended in a few YouTube videos.

It seemed to work, but there were some issues with knocking some of the sand off of the base as the mod podge seemed to be drying and getting tacky as I was applying it, but not so terribly that I needed to start from scratch.

At this point, all of the pieces then got a blast of Poundland grey primer in my specialist spray booth, an upturned archive box in the downstairs toilet with all of the windows open:

Just look at them, you could probably call them good and slap them down on a table at this point:

Never one to take the easy way out though, it was time for painting. I picked out the egg carton stones with a darker grey, before giving everything a coat of homemade Vallejo Smoke equivalent wash.

As you can see in the above picture, I added slightly more than just a drop of washing up liquid to break the surface tension, resulting in a very bubbly wash. The first application to a piece revealed that it was not in fact dilute enough, and pretty much just painted the piece brown, so I scrubbed that off and added some more water to the mix. When I painted it on it looked fine:

(If a little bubbly)

But as it dried, it looked like I hadn’t actually applied any at all:

So I had to go back over every piece multiple times trying to get the effect that I wanted. It wasn’t as quick as I’d originally envisioned, but I pretty much got them where I wanted after the fourth or fifth application (having carefully added just a tiny smidge more pigment).

Then it was a case of attacking it with a Drybrush of my usual selection of Wilko tester paint pots and now we have enough ruined walls to fill a little table:

At some point in the future I think I’d like to make some taller multi-storey ruins, but for now these will be perfect for the ruined basements needed for the solo campaign Dark Alchemy.

Follow me!

In an outstanding act of continuing project focus, I’ve finished the next model for my Frostgrave warband, a tracker:

I know I could have just used the Tracker that I previously painted, but I had the Cultist Tracker knocking around and thought he fit the aesthetic of a Necromancer somewhat better…

Plus, that’s one step closer to a completed Wildling warband for the ASOIAF project that he was originally bought for! 

 

Finishing him brings the painted warband as it stands to this:

Only three more miniatures to paint until it’s time to venture into the frozen city! 

In addition to changing thanks to me finishing painting something, the Tally has taken some other swings recently too:

A while back, hankering somewhat for the days of my youth, I challenged some chums to build a 500 point Warhammer army ahead of the launch of Warhammer The Old World, figuring that with that vague an endpoint it felt like an achievable task. Since then, it has morphed into an eighth edition escalation league of sorts, although we’re still very light on the details (there’s a Facebook group and a Reddit for our road to the old world if anyone else cares to take part).

One challenger chose Bretonnians, but using alternative miniatures as he’s not yet as far as I know won the lottery. After discussing alternative miniature options, I realised that I had pretty much everything he needed in my backlog, including a spare eighth edition rulebook. Handily he lives a road up from my Mother in Law, so I was able to drop this care package off earlier today:

(I also dug out a shield for the foot Knight after taking this picture)

And was also gifted these treats:

Yes, I’m running Sisters of Battle in a fantasy challenge, I’m going to shoot his knights right off the board!

So, all movement factored in the Tally now stands at:

4 vs -5 = +9

So that’s the secret to keeping the Tally in the black, minus numbers!

So, what’s next? My focus remaining true and finishing off the last of my Frostgrave warband, then it’s Warhammer time!